Zero subsidy approaches … a barrier to the poor?

Posted by Patrick Moriarty on May 31, 2011 · 1 Comment 

Interesting report from the Poverty Action Lab that presents overall findings (from a series of RCTs) on the impact of charging small fees to poor users of essential (primarily medical) products (‘The Price is Wrong’). The findings – in short – that charging even very low fees has a negative impact on uptake by the … Continue reading →

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It’s the (political) economy stu…

Posted by Patrick Moriarty on May 31, 2011 · 5 Comments 

Thanks to the colleague who sent me the link to this interesting blog-post from the Center for Global Development: ‘an object lesson in the gritty difficulties of translating evidence into policy’. In summary: the fact that worming kids had been rigorously and gold-standardly (yes – an RCT!) proved to be really useful is, apparently and … Continue reading →

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Evidence schmevidence

Posted by Patrick Moriarty on May 16, 2011 · 1 Comment 

A delightful – if unverifiable – rumour has it that top staff of ‘a leading philanthropic donor’ are not allowed to travel together on the same plane: the loss to the world of their collective brainpower in case of a sudden accident being too much to bear.  That said donor is a champion of ‘evidence … Continue reading →

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Schumpeter: A $300 idea that is priceless | The Economist

Posted by Patrick Moriarty on May 5, 2011 · 3 Comments 

An interesting article in the economist. Schumpeter: A $300 idea that is priceless | The Economist.  Apparently some clever people in the States  have decided that the next poverty killing silver bullet will be a $300 house (presumably flat-packed and arriving with a small widget to assemble!).  What starts off as another article on technology/business … Continue reading →

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